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Employment in India: Structural problems
lower labour force participation, and reduced wages in local markets.29 Trade openness has played a key role in changing employment patterns in India. • Goods previously produced here may now be imported, leading to loss of manufacturing and related jobs; • Where production continues here, the labour may be replaced with imported capital goods, leading to loss of jobs; • The remaining workers are subject to pressure and loss of negotiating power, due to the overhanging threat of being replaced by machines. This leads to poor quality jobs and informalisation.30 3.6 Enterprise size There are several policies that incentivise fims to stay small, and discourage the entry of large new firms. Firms are often observed to use contract workers (secondary workers and labour outsourcing) to stay below the legal threshold size to escape labour regulations.31 There is also evidence that tax regulations lead to small sizes.32 In the past, we have also had reservations for small-scale enterprises in many sectors, supposedly for the protection of employment in these small enterprises. However, there is significant evidence to prove that the situation might actually be the reverse. Employment is created in larger firms, and such firms are more likely to pay higher wages, create more investment, and be more productive.33 When the small-scale 29 Autor, Dorn, and Hanson 2013. 30 Amit and Nayanjyoti 2018. 31 Ramaswamy 2013.
reservations mentioned above were removed, the entry of new large enterprises, as well as the growth of establishments that were previously constrained by limits on their stock of fixed assets, led to an increase in output, employment, and investment.34
4 Demographic Dividend At some point in the demographic development of any country, it reaches a stage where the growth in the working-age population is greater than the growth in the total population. At this point, the country experiences what is called the demographic dividend. According to United Nations Population Fund, “The demographic dividend is the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is larger than the non-working-age share of the population (14 and younger, and 65 and older).” With fewer dependents, and the largest section of the population in the working age, it is possible to generate more incomes, more savings, more capital per worker, and more growth. India is going through this stage right now. As a consequence of our demographic dividend, the dependency ratio—the ratio of the non-working age population to the working-age population—is decreasing in India. Figure 3 illustrates how it will decrease till about 2040, after which it will again increase. This is India’s opportunity to achieve high growth and inclusive prosperity. The benefits of this demographic dividend will be realised only if we are able to provide the additional labour force with gainful
32 Ramaswamy 2016. 33 La Porta and Shleifer 2008; Hsieh and Klenow 2009.
34 Martin, Nataraj, and Harrison 2017.
